Beauty Plus Brains

Whenever Felicia Williams thinks back to her darkest moment, it feels as if it happened in a different lifetime.

She was a college student and a single mother, still living in her native North Carolina, when she found herself sitting in the waiting room of an abortion clinic.

It was little more than a year after the birth of her first son, and Williams was pregnant again.

"I was lost, overwhelmed. I wound up going through with the abortion and I’ve regretted it my whole life," she says softly.

A decade later, Williams has experienced a remarkable turnaround in her life, and now has a platform to effect the same change for others.

She was recently crowned Ms. Pennsylvania Plus America. This weekend, Williams will be in Monroe, La., to compete against women from across the country for the second Miss Plus America Elite crown.

She is running on a platform of supporting single mothers and teaching young women that they have alternatives to abortion.

"I’m against women using abortions as a form of birth control," says Williams, 33. "I believe that if you do get pregnant, you have to accept that it happened for a reason. Nothing in this world happens by accident."

Indeed, the pageant winner says it has taken many hardships for her to gain wisdom and fulfillment. Now she is devoted to helping young women avoid the mistakes that made her life so difficult.

"I look at young girls today, and I tell them to value themselves and get their education. Once you have kids, well, everything else goes on the back burner," Williams says.

She was studying nursing at a community college in North Carolina when her son Justin was born in 1991.

To continue her education, Williams says she relied heavily on the support of her mother and her sister, an option she acknowledges many young women don’t have.

Although it was challenging, she was able to stay in school.

However, Williams decided against a nursing career after she had to watch an autopsy.

"I didn’t make it through that," she says, laughing.

She decided instead to study early childhood education, but the birth of her daughter, Joy, in 1994 led the mother to rethink her options.

"I asked myself, ‘Do I really want to be around kids all day if I have two?’"

Shortly after Joy’s birth, Williams moved to South Philly, a place she had visited before that made her feel "like I was right at home."

After moving to the city, she met her husband Robert at a church. The couple has a son, Jaden, and a home on the 3200 block of Wharton Street.

Soon after settling into her new home, Williams became certified as a secretary of finances and took a job as an office manager at a Center City law firm.

Four years ago, she took an executive assistant position at Keystone/AmeriHealth Mercy Plan, where she met two very influential people.

"I worked alongside of Ms. New Jersey and Ms. Pennsylvania," Williams says.

They convinced her to run for the title of Ms. Pennsylvania Plus America this year, and Williams was delighted to find out that she won over Memorial Day weekend.

The Miss Plus America pageant — which encompasses four age divisions spanning 16 to 40-and-up — is unaffiliated with the Miss America Organization or the Miss America Pageant.

The contest’s founder, Melissa Stamper, of Louisiana, dreamed of starting a pageant for "full-figured women who could face their fears and live their dreams," she says.

Stamper says she had competed in pageants as a child but grew to disdain the way traditional pageant systems treat larger women as "afterthoughts."

To participate in Miss Plus America, delegates must fill out online applications, submit state title reservation fees and have platforms that they can support with monthly appearances.

When Williams found out that the state title was hers, she "cried for about five days."

With her crown in tow, Williams began working with several organizations that help single mothers, including Philadelphia Cares, which offers moms volunteer opportunities.

Williams also works with Career Wardrobe, a program that sorts clothes for women in the welfare-to-work program, and Trevor’s Place, an organization that provides babysitting services to single mothers while they attend recovery meetings.

"There’s a stigma out there that young, single girls who get pregnant want that to be their way of life," she says. "The truth is, things happen to people. They should still be given a chance."

Williams says that through her personal life and her church, she has been able to help girls get through the initial fear of being single and pregnant.

"It was wonderful knowing that I helped them. The thing I try to convey is that these girls need to love and value themselves," she says. "They don’t have to dress in a degrading way. They don’t have to go along with music that refers to them negatively. They can save sex for marriage."

Williams hopes to bring her message across the country, but says even if she doesn’t win the national crown, she’ll be content to work locally.

She already has the support of pageant officials.

"Felicia’s a wonderful woman," Stamper says. "I couldn’t be happier to have her compete."

On Saturday, a panel of five to seven judges will choose Miss Plus America Elite after evaluating how the contestants in the four age divisions fare in four categories: personal interviews, dressy sportswear, evening gown and photogenic quality, Stamper says.

The grand prize is $10,000 in cash and prizes, including a cruise and a vacation in Cancun.

Williams will showcase her singing at the pageant, just another gift "that I have in my arsenal."

She is also an accomplished baker, and operates Simply Divine Sweets by Felicia out of her home. She has been selling her baked goods to her fellow church members at the Fresh Word Ministry in Cherry Hill, N.J., for the past two years, and plans to open her own bakery in a few years.

"That’s the goal, to ease up a bit, have the bakery and work with young girls," Williams says.

And if she were to win the Miss Plus America Elite crown?

"I’d probably just cry for a year."

� For more information, visit www.missplusamerica.com.